She-Ra

As a child, She-Ra was one of my favorite TV shows. I did not watch it religiously, in fact I probably never watched more than a dozen episodes. I did not watch a lot of TV as a child. I do have fond memories of this series. I collected a lot of the toys for it, and I spent many hours playing with those toys. I can probably trace my fascination with magical girls back to this series. 

Art by Daekazu.
Original can be found on
his DeviantArt

In this light, I was fairly excited when Netflix announced it's new original She-Ra series. They'd redone Voltron and most people seemed to like what they did with it, even some of the most devoted fans of the original Voltron in my acquaintance. So, naturally, I expected they'd do just to a She-Ra remake. 

I just finished watching all 13 episodes, and I have to say that I am pretty disappointed. I really did not like the new series at all. There were a few things I liked--mostly Catra. Beyond those things, I did not enjoy watching the series. I did not like the new animation style. I did not like the character designs (beyond Catra). I did not like the characters... any of them really... except Catra. I did not like the new lore behind the new series.

Maybe I expected too much from the series, but the whole thing really just fell flat for me. It had some redeeming moments, a few good lines here and there. Maybe there just wasn't enough for them to work with to make a good series, because if I'm honest, the original series wasn't anything amazing either. I just feel like the new series didn't have any of the elements that I truly loved about the original. The new series felt like something else skinned to look like my favorite childhood series. It kind of reminds me of how I felt after watching Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, which should not have had the Final Fantasy title.